Wednesday, Yom HaZikaron 2 Iyar 5768 – May 7, 2008.

Please include Israel's captive soldiers in your tefillot: Zecharia Shlomo ben Miriam Baumel, Tzvi ben Penina Feldman, Yekutiel Yehuda Nachman ben Sarah Katz, Ron ben Batya Arad, Guy ben Rina Chever, Gilad ben Aviva Shalit, Eldad ben Tova Regev, Ehud ben Malka Goldwasser.

 

            Parashat Emor introduces the obligation of the korban ha-omer, the special grain offering brought once a year in the Beit Ha-mikdash from the first gleanings of the new barley harvest.  The Torah requires offering this sacrifice mi-machorat ha-Shabbat – literally, "the day following the Shabbat" (23:11) – a phrase that became subject to a bitter controversy during the time of the Second Temple.  Rabbinic tradition interprets the word "Shabbat" in this phrase as a reference to the first day of Pesach, such that the korban ha-omer is brought on the sixteenth day of Nissan, the second day of Pesach.  The heretical Sadducee sect, however, which denied the authority of the oral tradition, insisted on the literal reading of this word.  They thus maintained that the omer offering was to be brought specifically on the first Sunday after the first day of Pesach.  (See Masekhet Menachot 65-66.)

            Many writers have addressed the question of why, according to the oral tradition, the Torah would speak of the first day of Pesach with the misleading term "Shabbat."  If it intended to require offering the korban ha-omer after the first day of Pesach, why did it write "the day following the Shabbat"?

            An insightful explanation was offered by the Akeidat Yitzchak (as cited by Professor Nechama Leibowitz):

 

This contains a most significant lesson: Let us not attribute the rich yield of the soil to the laws of nature symbolized by the Sabbath of Creation – as the Sabbath here is interpreted by the Sadducees – but to Divine Providence, of which the Pesach festival is the most outstanding testimony.

 

In other words, the Torah introduces the term "Shabbat" in this context specifically to contrast the different themes of Shabbat and Pesach.  Shabbat, the observance of which commemorates the act of creation, represents the natural order that was set in motion at the time of the earth's genesis.  Pesach, which celebrates the miraculous events of the Exodus, symbolizes the notion of God's direct intervention in world affairs, which can occur even outside the framework of the natural order.

According to the Akeidat Yitzchak, the Torah employs the term "Shabbat" in a context where it refers to Pesach in order to allude to the corresponding misconception that people often have towards agricultural success.   While on the surface the "rich yield" appears to be the product of "Shabbat," the natural agricultural processes, in truth it is brought forth through the concept of "Pesach" – divine providence.  Just as the term "Shabbat" must not be interpreted literally, and instead refers to the holiday of Pesach, so must we look beyond the superficial appearance of the strictly natural causes of our success, and attribute it instead to the Almighty's involvement.

 

David Silverberg

 

Comments are welcome.

 

(c) 2007 Israel Koschitzky Virtual Beit Midrash, Yeshivat Har Etzion.

 

 

Come study in the VIRTUAL BEIT MIDRASH - Torah by email